IE Lab 12

I only had time to complete about half this lab. I made the following mistakes:

• port security recovery cause is psecure-violation
• cannot use MAC access-list to filter IP. Use static mac entry instead
• ip ospf demand circuit
• I actually got the multicast helper-map figured out, but was testing it wrong. Need to use ip sla to test specific multicast ports

Mock Lab 5 Score

I scored a 71 on IE Mock Lab #5. Still not passing, but this was ranked a 9/10 so I'm pretty happy with the performance. I'm also getting closer to my score estimates--only 13 points off this time. Here's what I missed that I didn't expect:

Configured an IP on an interface instead of on a vlan, as specified on the diagram. I changed two of these from the initial config, but I must have missed one. -2
Loopbacks were not summarized. I'm suprised here, I spent quite a bit of time on them. It's possible some of my later EGP redistribution broke this again. -2
Missed an OSPF adjacency password. -2
Incorrect IGP metric. -2
Multicast, -4 because of incorrect L2 vlan.
I seem to have lost a point in the wash somewhere.

Lessons learned

• Compare the diagram to the configuration for review. Device by device.
• Re-verify summarizations and metrics after EGP is complete
• Check each ip ospf interface for authentication

These mistakes were nothing to do with the complexity of the lab. I think I just get overwhelmed with review near the end of the lab and don't check every little detail. This happened to me on the actual lab as well. I need to get more disciplined with this.

With the difficulty of this lab, I really feel I have a pretty strong grasp of the technologies and concepts. I just have to do better at verification. Because of this I'm going to adjust my study schedule to the following:

2/16: IE Mock Lab #1. Pretty easy and I better get near 100% on it. Only 41% last time due to little mistakes.

2/17: IE lab #12. Just taking this for the sake of practicing with something new.

2/23: Cisco CCIE Assessor. By now I better be doing a good job of verification. I want to make sure I'm doing tasks to Cisco's level of expectation.

2/24: IE Lab #16. Again, doing something new.

3/1: Rest

3/2: Lab Attempt #2

IE Lab 10

6:50am lab started
7:21am diagrams complete
7:43am readthrough complete

7:53 1.1 complete, 4 points
8:03 1.2 complete, 3 points

Switching complete 7/7 points

8:07 2.1 complete, 2 points
8:13 2.2 complete, 2 points
8:14 2.3 complete, 2 points

Frame relay complete, 6/6 13/13 total

8:24 3.1 complete, 2 points
8:54 3.2 complete, note traffic share count in sh ip route , 3 points
9:00 3.3 complete, 2 points
9:03 3.4 complete, 3 points
9:22 3.5 complete, 3 points--virtual links can extend for area 0 preference as well
9:26 3.6 complete, 3 points
9:28 3.7 complete, 2 points
10:10 3.8 complete, 3 points--weird stuff. a /24 was getting redis as well. I still don't understand why but it's blocked now
10:14 3.9 complete, 3 points
10:22 3.10 complete, 3 points

IGP complete, 27/27, 40/40 total

10:30 pingtests complete, no issues. Taking lunch
10:45 back from lunch
10:58 4.1 complete, 3 points
11:08 4.2 comlete, 3 points. Had to go back and filter out a default route from ospf->eigrp
11:19 4.3 complete, 3 points.
skipping 4.4. I know how to do this, but it would kill BGP reachability.
12:01 4.5 complete, 3 points
12:31 pingtests complete. Had some sloppy routing decisions to fix up

EGP complete, 12/15, 52/55 total

12.40 5.1 complete, 2 points
12:50 5.2 complete, 3 points
12:50 5.3 complete, 3 points
12:56 5.4 complete, 3 points

Multicast complete, 11/11, 63/66 total

1:00 6.1 complete, 2 points
1:12 6.2 complete, 2 points
1:18 6.3 complete, 3 points

Ipv6 complete, 7/7, 70/73 total

1:38 7.1 complete, 4 points. OSPF doesn't care much for frame-relay fragmentation
1:51 7.2 complete, 3 points. available bandwidth feeds off mincir
2:53 8.1 complete, 3 points. Couldn't verify for some reason
skipped 8.2, 0/3 points. not sure how to change telnet port
3:07 9.1 complete, 3 points
3:07 9.2 complete, 2 points
3:15 10.1 complete, 3 points
3:22 10.2 complete, 3 points
3:27 103 skipped, 0/3 points. Not sure how to renew dhcp every 3 hours outside of interface

Lab 10 complete. 91 points possible. Time to check.

1.1 because I can't read. sw2 transparent -4
4.4 looks like killing reachabilit was fine -3
8.2 rotary -3
9.1 banner exec -3
10.3 funny, I was thinking kron -3

Total score: 84

IE Mock Lab #4

I didn't do much studying at all during the week. Grad school is picking up now so there probably won't be much time. This is why I moved the real lab for the end of January, originally. I was hoping to get it completed before school started.

Today I'm taking IE Mock lab #4. It has a difficulty of 9, which means it's supposed to be harder than the actualy lab. To make things worse, they put a timer on now and will automatically kick me off the equipment 8:30 after I start.

I'm going to try one different approach this time. I'm going to open 10 terminal windows instead of just the 1. I was afraid before that I would get confused, but I'm sure there'd be a big benefit to catching debug ip routing messages and others if I go this way. I hope by practicing a month with this I'll get the issues straight.

6:32am Started Lab
7:00am Diagrams complete
7:18am Readthrough complete
7:42am 1.1 complete, 2 points
7:42am 1.2 complete, 3 points
8:10am 1.3 complete, 2 ponts
8:10am 1.4 complete, 3 points
8:10am 1.5 complete, 3 points

Bridging and Switching complete, 13 points

8:25am 2.1 complete, 3 points
8:35am 2.2 complete, 2 points
8:35am 2.3 complete, 2 points
8:35am 2.4 complete, 2 points
8:38am 2.5 complete, 2 points

Frame-Relay complete, 11 points

8:45am 3.1 complete, 3 points

HDLC/PPP complete, 3 points

8:52am 4.1 complete, 2 points
8:56am 4.2 complete, 2 points
9:01am 4.3 complete, 2 points
9:22am 4.4 complete, 4 points
10:07am 4.5 skipped, 0 of 2 points
10:20am 4.6 complete, 2 points
10:28am 4.7 complete, 2 points
10:32am 4.8 skipped, 2 points
10:36am 4.9 complete, 2 points
10:39am 4.10 complete, 2 points
10:42 4.11 complete, 3 points
10:47 4.12 complete, 2 points
10:50 4.13 complete, 2 points

IGP complete, 27 of 29 points

11:16 pingtests complete, beginning lunch
11:35 back from lunch
11:45am 5.1 complete, 3 points
12:04pm 5.2 complete, 2 points

BGP complete, 5 points

BGP Pingtests complete

12:40pm 6.1 complete, 3 points
12:40pm 6.2 complete, 1 point
12:44pm 6.3 complete, 1 point
skipping 6.4, 0/2 points

Multicast isn't working right, I may lose all 7 points here

1:06 7.1 complete, 2 points
1:09 7.2 complete, 1 point

IPv6 complete 3 points

1:17 8.1 complete, 2 points
1:36 8.2 complete, 1 point
1:36 8.3 complete, 2 points
1:36 8.4 complete, 2 points
1:36 8.5 complete, 2 points

QoS complete, 9/9 points

1:42 9.1 complete, 2 points
skipping 9.2
skipping 9.3
10.1 complete, 3 points
10.2 complete, 3 points
10.3 complete, 3 points
10.4 complete, 3 points

Grading
4.5 -2 points. I was close, need to play with the area command some more
4.8 -2 points. ip ospf authentication null
6.4 -2 points. I knew this--need to research ip pim nbma-mode some more
9.2 -3 points. Need more practice with reflexive acls to be mroe comfortable
9.3 -2 points. aaa authentication password-prompt, username-prompt, login local
10.2 -3 points. snmp-server tftp-server-list
11.1 -2 points. Need more pracitce wtih NAT

Total estimated score, 84

IE Lab 5

And now it's time to change gears with an IE lab. I'm doing all the ones straight from the "recommended lab studying" from their resources page.

7:05am lab started
7:26am initial diagrams complete
7:55am final diagrams and readthrough complete--I may complete a mcast diagram later
8:04am troubleshooting complete, 2 points
8:12am 1.1 complete, 3 points
8:14am 1.2 complete, 2 points
8:32am 1.3 complete. It took me a bit to get inarp figured out. Needed a multipoint interface along with the interface-dlci command. Switching from subinterface p to m required a reboot as well., 2 points
8:36 1.4 complete, 2 points

Section 1 and troubleshooting complete. 11 of 11 points

8:41 2.1 complete, 3 points
8:53 2.2 complete, 4 points
9:00 2.3 complete, 3 points
9:02 2.4 complete, 2 points
9:12 2.5 complete, 4 points

Bridging and Switching complete, 16 of 16 points, 27/27 total

9:21 3.1 complete, 3 points
9:25 3.2 complete, 3 points
9:35 3.3 complete, 2 points
9:37 3.4 complete, 2 points
9:40 3.5 complete, 2 points
9:49 3.6 complete, 2 points
9:59 3.7 complete, 3 points
10:14 3.8 complete, 3 points

IGP complete, 20 points, 47/47 total

12:27 pingtests complete. A couple of redis conn needed and all was well

11:06 4.1 complete, 2 points
11:54 giving up on task 4.2. In the real lab I would have moved on much faster
11:59 task 4.3 complete, 3 points
12:02 task 4.4 complete, 3 points

BGP complete, 8/10, 55/57 total

Taking lunch

12:22 back from lunch
12:28 task 5.1 complete, 3 points
12:52 task 5.2 complete, 3 points
12:58 task 5.3 complete, 2 points
1:00 task 5.4 complete 1 point
1:07 task 5.5 complete, 2 points

Multicast complete, 12/12, 67/69 total

I'm pretty comfortable with IPv6 so I'm going to skip it

1:14 task 7.1 complete, 3 points
1:22 task 7.2 complete, 2 points
1:39 giving up on task 7.3, how to set the queue depth
2:04 task 8.1 complete, 3 points
2:09 task 8.2 complete, 3 points
2:17 task 9.1 complete, 3 points
2:19 task 9.2 complete, 3 points
2:29 skipping task 10.1, no idea
2:30 skipping task 10.2, no idea

Lab complete, 84/100. Barely passed, but I skipped IPv6 which would have been a relatively easy 7 points

Here's what I missed
Task 4.2--neighbor x.x.x.x remote-private-as
Task 5.2--I needed to use ip pim rp-announce-filter rp-list x group-list y on R1
Task 7.3--I should have trusted my instincts, it used the shape max-buffers command
Task 8.1--I should have used the established keyword on the telnet access list.
Task 8.2--I didn't even think of using a VACL
Task 10.1--Transport preferred non fixes the annoying dns lookup issues
Task10.2--I stink at privilege levels. Learned a little more though.

H Continued

11:50 back from lunch
12:17 OSPF complete, 10 points
12:32 pingtests complete
12:42 BGP complete, 10 points
12:52 Router Redundancy complete, 8 points
1:04 Multicast complete, 9 points
1:40 IPv6 addressing complete, 8 points
3:45 had to take a break at about 2:30 for some other commitments. Now I ran out of time. I was most of the way through ipv6 routing, so I'll give myself 6 of 9 points.
I'll do QoS in notepad by hand
3:57 QoS completed, 5 points

Summary:
7 hours
97 points

The focus of this lab was obviously IPv6. I was disappointed I ran out of time because it was a pretty difficult IPv6 scenerio. I was picking things off one by one, just hadn't quite had it finished yet.

Interestingly, there was no ipv6 routing protocol running in between two ipv6 IGPs. I setup a tunnel to overcome this. The answers went with a default route and policy routing instead.

IPExpert Multiprotocol Challenge H

7:36 Lab started
7:51 IP, routing, and BGP diagrams complete
8:20 readthrough and initial configs complete
8:21 Infrastructure complete, 1 point
8:30 Basic configuration complete, 3 points
9:20 WAN almost complete. Need to find RFC2427
9:30 found it--frame-relay ietf, WAN complete, 12 points
10:42 LAN configuration complete, 9 points
10:51 RIP complete, 6 points
11:20 EIGRP complete, 10 points
11:20 lunch started

Lunchtime thoughts

• I spent some extra time trying to get fallback bridging to work. I have to keep remembering that it doesn't bridge IP. The question I was working on obviously had some tricky wording. I caught onto that right away, but wanted to go ahead and try it the hard way. It didn't work, so I eventually reverted back to the other way.
• I wonder if there is a way to verify the DE bit is getting set
• I'm assuming /31 is the most effective use of point-to-point IPs
• It took a while to figure out RFC2427 was frame-rel IETF. I never could find it on the DocCD, but I found it by doing an interface-level "encap frame-rel ?". I had a feeling this was frame-relay from the start but I wanted to try to verify it. Since it was an RFC, HDLC was ruled out. So that pretty much left PPP or frame-rel IETF.
• I learned something new about MSTP. I was always setting the costs wrong before. I need to set the cost for the instance of MSTP, not the STP way. This explains a lot of confusion I was having regarding priority in the past.

3:44 down, 41 points complete